It’s so uniquely aggravating to scroll through old photos and see one where you look great or are having a wonderful time, but your ex is right there next to you. You can’t repost that picture as a throwback. Depending on how toxic the breakup was, you might even feel compelled to archive it so it’s no longer visible on your Instagram. What a waste of a memory, of a good outfit, of a photo op—whatever. (And if you’re thinking, “I’m on great terms with my ex. This isn’t a real problem for me,” those are famous last words.)
The holidays are an especially perilous time for future you’s photo reel. You might think it’s harmless to haul your boyfriend along to your family gathering this year, only to be enraged by his presence in the photos for seasons to come. You hope if you break up, it’ll be amicable and the photos will only bring good memories—but why risk it?
This year, don’t make the same mistakes. Be strategic with your photos so no matter what, they’ll remain totally usable in the future.
Ask significant others stand on the end in group pictures
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This tip comes from Reddit: At family gatherings this year, make sure you have all the new-ish significant others stand at the edge of you family photos, so they’re easy to crop out later if you have to. The center of the photo should be the main family unit: the group of people you’re stuck with no matter what happens in your current romantic relationship.
Don’t be too obvious about moving them to the side. Instead, see if you can find a way to quietly ask an uncle or cousin to take the photo and do the arranging for you. It’s not that you’re planning to break up; you’re just being pragmatic. Your partner might not appreciate it either way, so it’s best to put the blame on a distant relative they’ll only see again once they’ve made the cut for next year’s photo.
Ask for “family-only” shots
Also per Reddit, you can take as many photos with your significant other as you want, but make sure you ask for a “family-only” picture at some point.
“Take lots of photos with lots of combinations of people,” said one Redditor. “The new guest is none the wiser and then you can just discard the whole photo if things change down the road and you don’t have to awkwardly crop or hope you’re good at Photoshop.”
Use caution when uploading to Instagram
Instagram’s carousel feature—where you can attach multiple photos and videos to a single grid post—was recently updated to allow users to remove one picture from the lineup. This is great, because it means you won’t have to nuke the entire post if you want someone who appears in a shot removed from your grid.
Still, you might have multiple pics featuring the person littered throughout that carousel post. Always make sure the front photo does not feature your significant other so that if you delete the photo they’re in, it doesn’t mess up the continuity of the grid or make it too obvious what you’ve done. Moreover, make sure that if your front carousel photo does feature them, the second one does not. You can only delete one picture from a carousel, but it won’t matter if the one directly behind that has them in there, too.
And when it comes to archiving, here’s another tip: Before you file away a picture someone else is tagged in, remove the tag. Once the picture is in your archive, you can’t alter the tags on it, but if you ever do un-archive it, everyone tagged will receive a fresh push notification that you “added a photo” of them. That is bound to be humiliating. Delete whatever you can from the carousel and remove any tags before archiving.